I believe it was stated that a run would take around 15 minutes per map and under unknown conditions. I hope they didn't mean to keep us busy for that long with just 3 pieces...

So about 45 minutes for a full run of all 3 fractals. So that's a mere 25.5 hours (of NOTHING but grinding the dungeon, not including any downtime) to get one Gift of Ascension, which is almost certainly not the only thing required.

If it takes a Gift of Ascension and one of the accessories, that number balloons to 93 hours of pure grinding (no downtime accounted for etc.).

the saddest part in all of this is if they don't go through with it at all, it won't really matter anymore. the mere fact they actually considered going against their own philosophy is beyond ridiculous and disgusting.

It's exciting because now you can sneak in to hardcore groups and pretend to be fully equipped with ascended gear and bet gems with your friends for the time it takes for them to notice that you were lying!

Isn't that fun? ISN'T IT? IT IS!

That actually would be pretty funny.

Asudementio, on 13 November 2012 - 07:45 AM, said:

I think the agony mechanic is supposed to be rewarding in the sense that given time to acquire ascended gear you will notice an increase in your strength as a player by being able to better handle the new content. It would be this increase feeling of power that is "fun/exciting".

Personally, I'd be more excited to be rewarded for mitigating the agony mechanic with my own skill rather than because I went grinding for a specific item to counter it.

Putting aside this controversy, but how is this new ascended mechanic and items supposed to be exciting at all? So they add a new condition called Agony that will kill you real quick unless you have a specific upgrade. And after you get the upgrade, you're fine. So how is that fun and exciting and adding anything interesting to the game as they claim in the blog?

Man, can't say I am not disappointed by how it turned out to be legit.

It's a classic example of a gear treadmill, there is just no way you could sugar-coat this to mean anything else but. Now if they introduced this Infusion madness and be done with it, it'd be debatable but:

"This is just the beginning. In November, we’re only adding the first level of Infusions and Ascended Rings and Back slots, so that leaves us a lot of room to build upon these levels of Item progression in future content."

from the Blogpost makes it pretty damn clear that this will regularly updated with new content patches to keep people running within their hamster-wheel.

I'm not sure whether it's the actual treadmill I'm annoyed by or the fact that these infusions basically work like Resistance-gear checks on earlier World of Warcraft raid encounters. It was the WORST way to artificially cripple your players and it is still, especially in a game like GW2 which should be beatable without all those shenanigans. Adding something that just kills you, because you don't have stat X on your gear - is just piss poor dungeon design.

Last but not least: I can't believe Martin Kerstein actually made it seem like people were making a big fuss over nothing, moaning the interwebs for its hysteria when it actually IS a pretty *ing big deal and definitely against their own manifesto to flip-flop on one of the most outstanding characteristics of their game: horizontal gear progression. "Screw that", I guess.

Will see how the dungeon plays itself, if it's fun and challenging, I will keep playing, if it's a bore or just lazily designed, I'll let it be and come back whenever I feel like it.

I am writing this guide because I'm having a lot of success with it and it a very build to run as well. So here goes and feel free to give me feedback.

This build is a support style build, however your damage will be quite good as well due to back to back shatters using mind wrack and cry of frustration. The weapon set I recommend is the great sword and staff.

Equipment

I always build my characters durable. The armor I use gives power, vitality, and toughness. I believe, and many others, that staying alive in this game is more important than doing damage. This is very true in dungeons because many fights are very drawn out, and people do go down and die due to the unforgiving nature of dungeons. Glass cannons are simply not viable in a lot of places because they just go down too fast, and could hinder your team.

For weapons I use a great sword that gives power, precision, and condition damage. The staff I use gives power, precision, and condition damage. For jewelry, I use coral jewelry. If I really need it, I switch to the AC weapons which gives power, toughness, and vitality.

Traits

Edit 1: I apparently mis-interpreted some stuff in the traits tree. I'm going to make some changes to the traits section.

Edit 2: Trait section is fixed now.

Domination: I and X are picked because I gives a nice bonus to shatters and X is great for great swords, since you will be using one.

Dueling: V and X are picked because they are very good at keeping you alive. In dungeons this is extremely important. Personally I like to build my characters tanky and survive better in fights. I find this extremely valuable in dungeons. However if you prefer a glass cannon set up, go for it but I would strongly suggest you rethink this.

Illusions: The reason I max out this trait over any other because this trait grants a lot of utility and condition damage is a very nice trait for mesmers. Confusion hits extremely hard and using this build I've seen confusion stacks hitting for over 2500. V is picked because it makes your confusion last longer, which makes it hit more often. VII is picked because the extra bounce on the staff and great sword is just a nice bonus to have; a good substitute for this slot is pretty much any one in this trait. XI is picked because it gives one extra person for the shatter scaling.

As explained by Dastion:

Dastion, on 09 October 2012 - 07:57 AM, said:

-Speaking of Mind Wrack, it scales incredibly well with Illusionary Persona. Unlike the other shatters, Mind Wrack is weighted so that it deals ~50% of it's max damage from a single illusion, the other Illusions only add about 25%. For example, if a 3 Illusion shatter hits for a total of 1000 (~333.33 x 3) then a single Illusion Shatter will hit for about 500. The damage per Illusion goes down as you add more Illusions, but the total damage goes up. The reason this is important is because Illusionary Persona mimics the per Illusion damage, so with a single Illusion Shatter you hit for 500x2 (once for the Illusion, once for you) so you deal about the same damage with a single Illusion as you deal with 3 Illusions without. For example, here are the numbers I came up with for Shatter damage using two steady swords (steady weapons have low damage that doesn't vary to help for testing purposes).

So you see, it's an awesome trait. Besides the bonuses to F2,F3, and F4 it completely changes the scaling of Mind Wrack to make have much higher average damage.

Slot Skills

Mirror Images: The two clones that are summoned are very good at being blown up. Enough said.

Null Field: A good utility field. It is great at curing conditions as well as ripping boons off of enemies. It is very reliable as well, although the recharge is quite long, in a lot of situations. One example is HotW quaggans; those things stack a lot of might and do a lot of damage and with this skill you can remove the might stack and nullify a lot of their damage.

Feedback: I consider this skill a mandatory pick for any PvE mesmer. It's simply just good. It nullifies all projectile damage and sends them back to the source. This can inflict a lot of damage as well as saving your team. However this skill requires a lot of practice and experience to use correctly.

Elite Skill: Generally I use time warp, however mass invisibility has its purposes as well. Be smart and pick which one will benefit your team in the situation.

Explosions

This is the meaty bit of the build so pay attention! The purpose of this build is to shatter as many clones as possible within the shortest amount of time and inflicting a lot of confusion stacks.

There are others combos that generate 3 clones as well that I won't list, but you get the point. The point is you can generate clones extremely fast! The combo is 3 clones F1, 3 clones F2, repeat, and watch the numbers fly. However, do not underestimate F3 and F4 they are more situational, but they will save your life when you use them well.

A good example is when you need to revive some one, F4 will give you invulnerability which helps a lot with reviving.

Final Thought

The last thing I want to mention that you should always be flexible. There are situations that requires a different weapon set and slot skills. For example, there are times where I will switch to a scepter and focus instead of using my great sword. Always be flexible and think for yourself before blindly follow a guide; guides are more of a reference of what you could do, but you don't always have to follow it word for word. I hope you enjoy this build and feel free to leave any feedback.

I'm slowly working to "one day." Got my 100% world exploration and my 500 ascalon tears. Now hoping to get the 500 badges of honour just from doing the 50 kills every month. So far at 100.

I'm not actively going to do it. I play and do what I want and if it happens to get me closer to my legendary, that's great. But there's no way in hell I log on and think "Today I do only WvW for badges!"

Dwarf Fortress kick ass. I read about a guy who had a problem with one of his dwarfs running around and being worried about something, breaking barrels and being depressed. Turns out she accidentally dropped her baby into a barrel of ale and another dwarf closed the barrel so the baby drowned. Such attention to detail.
Now tell me why I can't build a magma trap out of calcite.

Anyway, no, why would having multiple "most rewarding" zones mean that all zones must be equally rewarding? All you need are distinct rewards. For example, you can't get ectos in FoW, but you don't want to spend all day every day in UW because you can't get torment gems there, and so on. You can focus on farming ectos and using those to buy obsidian shards, but that might very well mean that you lose too much money in the conversion. However, you can spend all day every day in Orr (or maybe focus on a certain dungeon instead) because in GW2 you don't need very many things, just a lot of it. There is no spectrum of requirement (for your goals), which is intentional, but ultimately a flawed idea.
If GW2 actually promoted play in different areas, you wouldn't see everyone going to so few areas. You'd see people actually spread out.

No, I don't want less people to engage in exploration. Right now, however, you can see people running around and filling in spots in the check list - that is not exploration. Those who do real exploration, outside of the map markers, do it, but there's also those who would like to explore, but don't, because the very existence of map markers make the world feel as if it already is explored. That is why people say that it's like a city guide book. It turns them off before they can even start.

Technically you could use calcite in parts of a magma trap but i guess the answer you were looking for is cause its magma safe?

This is what I dont get, you keep using double standard! In GW2 you exclude that same possiblity because you said you can just make gold in orr and buy the materials you need! isnt the same true for ectos ? if you'd only get ectos with the most efficient way like you're saying people have to do in GW2 wouldnt that be doing say Auspicious beginnings? You earn enough for 1 ecto in around 6-8mins! That makes it 8-10 ectos an hour! You have to have a very lucky run to make that many farming the ectos directly! and this is for ectos which is probably the best value for money / time material! More expensive materials such as diamonds you have such a low drop rate that you definitely get them faster if you you make money and lower level materials you buy a ton of them in a short time that no drop rate can compare to it! Yet who would repeat Auspicious beginnings all the time? I hope no one cause it must really get boring in the long run! so then you substitute it with other stuff. The same can be equally true for GW2 though and even more so I would venture cause the rewards of different content are quite close to each other! The problem in my opinion is greedy players. These same greedy players if put in gw1 would farm things like Auspicious beginnings a billion times just cause they can get ectos faster then if they had to go farm them directly (and with a LOT less risk too ) ! I really wanted to compare earning in different zones playing an hour in each but alas had a bit of a nasty weekend and didnt find the time, try again this weekend! I am still convinced the difference isnt that great if you play regularly (not zerging the same events). I personally (cant speak for others) find many reasons to play in other areas. I am currently focusing on crafting and sound recipes need to be unlocked, other need to be discovered. There are also rare crafting materials that can only be aquired through a specific karma vendor which means finding that karma vendor. I have no clue who and where sells or gives clues about recipes! That means finding the needle in the haystack where the haystack is the entirty of tyria !

Well I cant exclude, actually I agree I have no doubt that SOME people dont know there is more to exploration then POIs! I am sure a subset of those would love to experiance real exploration! But I am equally sure removing everything of the map will not help! Why? because for these people to not know there is more to exploration it means in 1 1/2 months they never went off the beaten path. They never talked to NPCs or simply shrug off what was said to them as pointless when in fact it had great meaning. I dont see that changing just cause you remove a marker off a map why? because the visible ruin on top of the hill will still be the visible ruin on top of the hill and they will still limit their exploration around the major sights only instead of branching off to visit the remote marker their world will most likely become smaller not larger! They will just chase after events, they will still get across only the stuff they get across because if they dont explore now they will still not explore then marker or no marker!

When I look at Gw2 I see a game that has content targeted at different level of people! Lets take crafting for example. Your a novice/casual crafter? no problem the game unlocks recipes for you as you level up your crafting ! (as easy as it gets!) you're a medium level crafter? No problem you got discoveries you can make by combining a ton of different materials together! as a more pro crafter you'll be able to do stuff that novice/casual crafters might not even know exists! Are you an advance / professional crafter? Ohh boy is there stuff for you to do ! Wonder around the world looking for recipes ! wonder around the world doing stuff like the link i linked yesterday, talking to ghosts and searching the world world for rare materials / information to try to unlock the secret to a recipe that costs way too much to discover casually! And this is not factoring in that there might be stuff we still dont even know about or that might be introduced in the future!

Exploration? same story! Novice, visit Points of interests, Medium, uncover areas off the beaten path, jumping puzzles that can easily come across and hidden events. Advanced? Find really hidden areas and do complex jumping puzzles in those areas !

Its up to the player how far he wants to push the game! The game tries to steer players in the right direction, I came across it a few times! such as a hidden event on the way to a skill point! It has one path, everyone has to go through there and there is a solitary NPC in this desolate cave, all you need to do is talk to her! what more can the game do then that? What kind of explorer would one be if they ignore something like this that stands out? Its not just up to the game, the game provides the content but its players who have to engage in it ! the game leaves anyone free to play how they want! If they want to limit their experiance to farming in Orr so be it, its their choice! I am in the mean time having fun trying to discover named weapons that in themselves are quite profitable to sell all over the world!

While I don't particular care for guilds (Guilds of any game generally consist of 10% fun/active members and 90% leechers) and by extension Guild Halls, I don't really understand what people mean when they keep asking for "Social tools".

Last I recall, in order to be social you require 3 things:

The ability to communicate (Chat Box)
A place to gather (The game itself, Major Cities)
A reason/topic to communicate (PS, Dungeons, Lore, IRLz)

Now, I understand that people would probably want more content which is less combat oriented (such as mini-games), but you know what would help?

ACTUAL IDEAS

OP, please provide at the very least a barebones example of a "social tool" that is anything other than a LFG tool or dungeon finder.

I personally dislike both because I prefer to do my dumbass check BEFORE entering the dungeon.If people weren't so brainless a LFG tool wouldn't be needed. If I had 1 Gold for every time I saw 5 people shouting in LA all for the same dungeon, I'd have 5 Dusks. People just need to stop being lazy and form their own groups.